Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know

Citation

Popham, W. J. (2020). Classroom Assessment: What Teachers Need to Know (9th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The ninth edition has sixteen chapters followed by a glossary and an index. Pearson released it in July 2019 with a 2020 copyright. The chapters are not grouped into parts, but they follow a clear sequence: why assessment matters and what to assess; the three criteria for judging any test (reliability, validity, fairness); how to build the main kinds of classroom assessment; how to improve and use them formatively; and finally the larger-scale uses of test results in standardized testing, test preparation, evaluation of instruction and grading.

According to the publisher, every chapter shares the same set of features: a "Decision Time" case set in a K-12 school that asks the reader to make an assessment decision; a "But What Does This Have to Do with Teaching?" section on the instructional payoff of the chapter's topic; a "Parent Talk" example of explaining an assessment matter to parents; and, new in this edition, a one-page "Testing Takeaway" that explains a key concept in terms suitable for sharing with parents or policymakers.

Chapters 1–2: Why Do Teachers Need to Know About Assessment?; Deciding What to Assess

The opening chapters make the case for assessment literacy and then take up the planning question of what a teacher's assessments should measure. The publisher notes that the edition includes information on the Common Core State Standards and on the Every Student Succeeds Act, which bear on what teachers are expected to assess.

Chapters 3–5: Reliability of Assessment; Validity; Fairness

The three test-appraisal criteria, each given its own chapter. The publisher states that this edition incorporates the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing throughout the relevant sections and adds real-world examples of how classroom teachers apply reliability, validity and fairness in different instructional settings.

Chapters 6–10: Selected-Response Tests; Constructed-Response Tests; Performance Assessment; Portfolio Assessment; Affective Assessment

The construction chapters, moving from items where students choose an answer, through items where they produce one, to extended performance tasks, portfolios and the assessment of students' attitudes and interests. The publisher describes concrete guidelines for core tasks, such as writing a good selected-response item or helping students choose meaningful material for a portfolio, illustrated with example items.

Chapters 11–12: Improving Teacher-Developed Assessments; Formative Assessment

How teachers can review and improve the tests they write, followed by a chapter on formative assessment, the use of assessment evidence to adjust teaching and learning while it is under way.

Chapters 13–14: Making Sense Out of Standardized Test Scores; Appropriate and Inappropriate Test-Preparation Practices

The move from the teacher's own tests to external ones: how to interpret standardized test scores, and how to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate ways of preparing students for tests. The publisher points to Chapter 13 for keys to judging the merits of commercial or locally developed instructionally diagnostic tests.

Chapters 15–16: The Evaluation of Instruction; Assessment-Based Grading

The closing chapters use assessment evidence for two judgements that teachers face: how well their instruction is working and how to assign grades on the basis of assessment.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5: foundations

• Assessment literacy: the understanding of testing that the book argues every teacher needs, both to teach well and to explain results to others.
• Reliability: the consistency of the results an assessment produces.
• Validity: how far the inferences drawn from test results are justified.
• Fairness: whether an assessment treats all groups of students equitably.

Chapters 6–12: building and using classroom assessments

• Selected-response and constructed-response items: the two basic item types, in which students either choose or produce an answer.
• Performance and portfolio assessment: extended tasks and collections of student work used to judge more complex skills.
• Affective assessment: measuring students' attitudes, interests and values rather than knowledge.
• Formative assessment: using assessment evidence during instruction to decide what to do next.

Chapters 13–16: tests beyond the classroom

• Standardized test scores: the score types and comparisons that external tests report.
• Test-preparation practices: the line between teaching to the skills a test measures and teaching to the test itself.
• Assessment-based grading: grades grounded in evidence of what students have learned.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Written for teachers, not measurement specialists. The title states the book's scope, and the publisher stresses clarity and humour, including cartoons, as ways of putting readers at ease with technical material. The publisher also describes updated real-world examples showing how classroom teachers apply reliability, validity and fairness.
• Practice built into every chapter. The recurring "Decision Time" cases and "But What Does This Have to Do with Teaching?" sections keep each topic tied to classroom decisions, which suits a course for pre-service teachers.
• Communication with others. The "Parent Talk" and "Testing Takeaway" features give practice in explaining assessment to parents and policymakers, a skill most measurement texts leave out.
• Breadth in a manageable length. Sixteen chapters run from item writing to standardized scores, test preparation and grading, so a single course can cover the whole cycle.

Limitations

• A United States school setting. The cases are set in K-12 schools, and the policy coverage is American (the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Common Core State Standards, state teacher-appraisal systems). Readers elsewhere, or in higher education, will need to translate the policy material.
• Light on measurement theory. The book is framed around what teachers need to know, and it ends with a glossary and index rather than statistical appendices; readers who need to estimate reliability or validity themselves will need a psychometrics text.
• Policy details date. Several of the edition's updates concern legislation and consortia current around 2019; readers should check the present status of these policies.

Where It Fits in the Course

Popham is the most accessible general text in the assessment list and a natural first book. Brookhart and Nitko's Educational Assessment of Students covers similar ground at greater length, in nineteen chapters with statistical appendices, and suits a course that wants more measurement detail; students can use it as a reference alongside Popham's construction chapters.

Dylan Wiliam's Embedded Formative Assessment develops the subject of Popham's Chapter 12 into a whole book of classroom strategies and techniques, and is the obvious companion for anyone whose interest is formative practice. The Handbook of Formative Assessment in the Disciplines, edited by Andrade, Bennett and Cizek, is a research handbook that examines formative assessment inside particular subjects; it belongs later, once the basic ideas are familiar. R. Michael Furr's Psychometrics: An Introduction is the measurement-theory text that explains how reliability and validity are estimated, the step beyond Chapters 3 and 4.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at pre-service and practising teachers and assumes no background in assessment or statistics. It suits a first course in classroom assessment in a teacher-education programme, and graduate students in other fields who need a plain-language grounding in testing.

A practical reading plan:

• Core: Chapters 1–5 in order, since the three appraisal criteria are used throughout the rest of the book. Then Chapter 12 on formative assessment.
• Construction: Chapters 6–10, read with the items or tasks you will actually write. Draft a few items of each type and check them against the chapter's guidelines; use Chapter 11 to review them.
• Beyond the classroom: Chapters 13–16 matter to anyone who will interpret state test results, prepare students for tests or grade, and are useful reading before a teaching placement.

Work through each "Decision Time" case before reading on, and try writing your own version of a "Parent Talk" explanation. The publisher describes additional self-check quizzes, application exercises and author podcasts in the MyLab Education version; these are optional. Readers outside the United States should note which parts of the policy discussion apply locally.